This post is written by Heidi's husband. She told me to say that. I wish I had a witty punchline to add to this sentence so it wasn't so boring but I don't. If you aren't deterred from reading at this point then I think we're in good shape.
There is a special luxury found by doing your business in a bathroom worth spending hours in. Unlike having a favorite restaurant or shady hill in a park, a bathroom is a personal and solitary experience. A place where you can be alone and society demonizes those who dare interrupt. Hotel resorts who take the time (and money) to enhance this special experience are the very same that make sure the bread they serve you is fresh or that the sheets you sleep in are comfortable. The attention people pay to how soft the sand is or how pristine the grounds are is uneven at best and deceptive at worst. Taro Gomi has it right, “Everyone Poops”, but not everyone wants to drink $17 cocktails or eat greasy pool burgers.
For the price of a Hawaiian cocktail you too could own this book.
So, for my recent trip to Hawaii I decided to review the entire experience by only considering the bathrooms. I think you’ll find that it’s not worth looking at anything else(1).
THE GRAND HYATT: Kauai
The Room:
We are welcomed to the Grand Hyatt Resort (and spa, because pooping on an open air lava rock toilet is a unique pleasure which, upon inventing this situation only now, I secretly fantasize about) with rectangular off white tile that covers an acrylic bathtub (complete with an interior handle bar), shielded by a cloth shower curtain that falls only 50% of the distance you’d expect, so after your shower the water pools near the base of the tub and you wonder if today will be your last and if people at your funeral will ever get an answer to that nagging question they’ve had since they walked through the church doors “how did he die?”
“He was getting out of a shower and” your mother will answer, tears welling in her eyes, “he slipped.”
“So sad.” they will reply.
Thankfully the bathroom came with a bathrobe that's so thick its basically two bath towels wrapped together (throw that on the floor and crisis averted, no early funeral for us).
Two sinks sit side by side on a white marble top with swirled gray tile floors. The tiles are nice, the grout slightly worn from years of stain and failed cleanings. We have towels, a white hand towel, and glass shelving.
Of course, it is a bathroom. It contains all the essential elements of a bathroom (including a bidet toilet that heats the seat itself, an amazing innovation if not for some toilet paper so thin you wouldn’t curse your insufferable, furniture moving upstairs neighbors with it). There is even a door which can be used to separate the defecation zone from more god-honest hand washing work in which case you are entombed within 4 plaster walls just big enough to contain your girth but no wider. If you were to ask me what was missing from this bathroom that would keep it from functioning as a bathroom, I’d say nothing. In-fact, for much of my life this bathroom would be considered most adequate, perhaps even decent !
But a resort is more than just the dump bucket you sit on and read some generic Hawaiian travel magazine that came with your room while you wait for the sun to rise (did you know that there are over 27 secret beaches on Kauai and all of them are so secret that no one except for you and whoever else is reading this magazine knows about them?). There is no better time than the present to take a #2, and I know just the place to do it.
Click here for Kauai's best kept secret beaches
The pool.
The Public Restrooms:
The Grand Hyatt pool toilets are a mixed affair, uneven stone floors meet a standard sink with tissue paper for drying, a single urinal, and a (near)-floor-to-(near)-ceiling protected toilet. It is utilitarian and no nonsense, the stone keeps well and the water pooling near the urinal could be pee, or might be pool water from its dripping patrons. We assume the latter and try not to think about it (while secretly thinking about it a lot and hoping that they recently chlorinated the pool, because then my dripping pool water can sterilize this sticky near-liquid. Why didn’t I bring my sandals in here? Well, why would people miss the urinal in the first place? That’s on them, not me. I’m a victim here. This urinal is massive, so massive that a normal human is vertically dwarfed by it. It stretches from the ground and ends at your shoulders, who the hell misses this type of urinal? Not even a 5 year old can accomplish that, it’s impossible. Unless of course some garbage-can person intends to miss. Yes I regret not wearing sandals now).
The sitting toilet area is its saving grace, a space so large it that could fit two wheel chairs with ease, you can stretch your legs and still not touch a wall or a door. You can nearly poop in peace which is something difficult to say about other public restrooms. Although, with only one urinal and a single sitter it’s likely you get a knock on the door and disturb this sacred moment. We should probably move on.
The Lobby:
Finally we arrive at the crème de la crème of Hyatt toilets, it’s finest offering; the lobby bathroom. Marble floors and brown, patterned wall paper treat you with playful green plants sprouting from an over-sized vase. Three sinks line the wall with a mirror behind, thick disposal Kleenex’s for hand drying, an automated soap dispenser for washing (but, oddly enough, a handle for dispensing the water). The toilets themselves are no greater or more glorious than the pool bathroom. Sure, they flush automatically, of course the toilet paper is fabric taken from a Swiss recycling center’s garbage, and so on. It is adequate and in some ways objectively beautiful, but only in the context of what we’ve seen earlier from the Hyatt begging the question: have we just tasted a delicious steak after years of eating dried chunks of protein infused dehydrated corn (2) (referred to hereafter as ‘kibble’, you know, dog food)? We can’t be sure.
Of all the ridiculous cost saving corners to cut.
This is what your $500 a night gets you.
Paper so thin the sheets rip from the oils on your fingers
The Hyatt can therefore be summarized as such, decent. A fine hotel, a wonderful place to stay. At no point during your stay would you, excluding any outside frame of reference, suppose that it could be better. But this is just a rephrasing of the kibble trap. If our life experience is only in eating dehydrated corn-chunks, we may never realize the existence of a the mouth watering steak that awaits us if we were to open our minds to the possibility.
Readers, decent is not great, it is above adequate and a luxury to those with only the life experience of bad. Maybe, you surmise after your fourth poop on the water logged stone tile floor, the dividers could be a little thicker, the soap dispenser a little more responsive, the towels to dry your hands a little more absorbent. Just so. If you are like me and perpetually dissatisfied with life, you will be wondering if what you had assumed to be steak (again, the bathrooms are nice) was in fact simply a fancier kibble. The Hyatt is such a place. A fine resort, a decent restroom, a fancy kibble! “Good”!
THE MAUNA LANI: Island of Hawaii
The Room:
At the Mauna Lani resort things are done a little differently. The hotel room tub is replaced by a waterfall shower, a single hand towel for drying is replaced with two mini hand towels that you dispose of after a single use and are replenished each house keeping cycle (a particular form of senseless opulence that is difficult to go without now)(3). And, instead of side by side sinks, they are split across the room from one-another yielding maximum personal space from your spouse who thinks their hair goop vessels and widgets deserve to go on top of your beautifully minimalist empty counter space simply because “you aren’t using it”.
There is no bidet here, but inside our separate poop-room rests our trusty TOTO toilet with a flush powerful enough to erase the nagging suspicion that you may need to clean the bowl with two rounds (you never do). Instead of bland pewter plaster we get a textured bamboo-blue wallpaper. It is, all together, a fine bathroom. I say objectively it is better than good which, after comparison with the Hyatt, we can declare with some confidence.
The Others:
The pool bathroom is of higher caliber and enters what I deem to be, after many years of defecating in the finest Hawaiian resorts, Great.
What does a public bathroom need in order to be considered as such? How can we possibly get any better you ask?
Imagine, if you will, a walkway entry into the bathroom with a display of horizontal bars of finely polished wood, behind which rests some textured-green paint, the effect is further embellished by a well tended potted plant. Entering the restroom proper we find each urinal to be separated not by some flimsy sheet of metal but by a plaster wall from floor to ceiling. Behind each urinal is not a bland, eggshell-white wall but verifiable artwork of textured, floral wall paper upon which a man can ponder life’s worries and challenges.
The toilets live in rooms. Let me make sure you understand, this means three floor to ceiling walls with a door in front of it. Rooms.
Use your imagination here.
Sort of like this, but not really.
Distinct and separate from the dirty world beyond. Once you’ve dropped half a pound in a room such as this, there is no return. We’ve just had our first, honest-to-god steak ladies and gentlemen and I’ll never eat kibble (‘fancy’ or otherwise) again! Gone are the days of wooden stall dividers, revealing the feet and heads of those inside dreaming of European privacy minus the 2 euro fee. Sheltered within a man has his castle, defended by a stainless steel lock and that sacred text any gentlemen knows to never knock in reply: “OCCUPIED” so sayeth the lord!
These bathrooms are great and deserve to be considered as such. We can drop into some minor inspirations found throughout the resort like a sink some 3 feet wide and merely a finger nail deep, or the framing of a bathroom mirror with finely stained wood, urinals that are flush-less, toilet seats that are automatic and never trigger simply because you move around, or the mini potted plants that find themselves between each sink, but those things are a trifle. An amusement, a distraction on our quest from good to something better. These bathrooms and by extension this resort must be considered thus: Great. And I’ll leave it at that.
THE FOUR SEASONS: LANAI
All of it:
Excellence is something many strive for in life but rarely find (and even rarer still: deserve). The Four Seasons Lanai hotel bathrooms reaches for such glory in every bathroom we discover.
To begin, we start with a personal bathroom similar to the Mauna Lani, a waterfall shower, two separate sinks, a separate toilet (a bidet like the Hyatt’s this time and one which opens automatically as you enter) and to one-up a competitor, a new beautiful bathtub. Everything is there and just a notch better. The color scheme is more cohesive (a pallet of sandstone and rich browns to compliment the faded green roof tile and tan paint of the resort). If you don’t believe it, saying to yourself that maybe this is some fluke (we are in a suite, after all), then wander into one of the two lobby bathrooms and find a story repeated.
The entryway of the main lobby bathroom is a bit grander (larger and with an oil painting of an exploding volcano), the sinks more beautiful and lavish (each sink is its own compartment, with its own towel dispenser, it’s own garbage can, it’s own soap dispenser), the toilets remain in separate rooms and are (at least in the men’s restrooms) bidets rather than standard flush toilets. Even the urinals, not to be left out, have little scented pucks in them and have framed artwork to gaze at while we release our ammonia liquid (rather than just nice wallpaper).
It’s a lot to take in and maybe a little difficult to believe.
For each variable the Mauna Lani brings to the bathroom story, on every tier and every discernible metric, the Lanai version can beat it (including a television embedded in a mirror, why have they done this? I have no clue, maybe it’s a boomer thing). everything is just a little larger, a little more clean, a little more beautiful (some light fixtures in the public restrooms are diffused through a geode for Christ’s sake). There can be no debate, these bathrooms are better than great.
I never would have known how out of sync my
chakras were if I hadn't walked past this
But readers, is better than great excellence? At which dimensions for a sink do we cross that sacred threshold? At 6 feet, at 8? Maybe instead we should consider the art, of which local Hawaiian artists find themselves front and center, or the scented plants. Would an original Monet be the necessary addition? Would a rare or exotic plant adorning our hand washing do the trick?
Sadly no, it cannot. To move up the staircase of good (the Hyatt) to great (the Mauna Lani) we needed a revelation, a shattering of norms and written public bathroom laws we once thought indelible (floor to ceiling toilet enclosures, similar urinal dividers, cloth hand drying towels, aesthetic beauty and an outstanding level of material excellence). But once we have been accustomed to these breakthroughs it is harder still to ascend to the revered annals of “excellent”! One cannot simply improve on each point and call it “excellent” (I.e, a gold toilet is not excellent, a massage toilet however… that has potential) something more needs to be brought to the table. So, what revelations remain for the wandering defector? Have we reached the end of our journey?
This resort is great, and in an objective sense superior in every way to the Mauna Lani. It is a beautiful resort, a wonderful place to be, an amazing place to poop, but it is not excellent, it is Great+.
Before I leave you let me just say that I am not one to deserve excellence (as those who know me may attest). However, it is out there. You have only to seek it out for yourself.
May your toilets be found clean and soap dispensers full.
XOXO
A GLIMPSE OF EXCELLENCE
Four Seasons: Bora Bora
FOOTNOTES
1:
my intention is to review resort hotels bathrooms on a basis relative to other resort hotel bathrooms and not relative to a hole-in-the wall restroom or your uncles shit closet that only flushes if you hold the handle in such-and-such a way. If I were to do this then of course, all resort bathrooms would be graded as “excellent” or “magnificent” because the plumbing works and there isn’t a film of dried urine on the base.
2:
This sort of relative-quality review may feel a bit hedonistic or excessive. Are we bad people for engaging in this blatant consumerism? Let’s find out, The thought chain goes something like this, imagine a dog who has only been fed kibble it’s short, tortured life to then be given the blessing of a rib eye steak one fateful Christmas Eve; in that moment it realizes how ignorant and stupid it was to believe kibble was so delicious. Maybe when the dog eats the steak it will rationalize its kibble past with nostalgia, “it’s honest food for an honest dog, just like me” only to then eschew steak henceforth forever for financial considerations. This is a reasonable attitude, although not one capable of discovering (or appreciating) the finest steaks available in the world. Nor is it capable of finding the greatest steak-quality to price ratio that exists (I consider this point resolved). However, others may take it a step further, they may say “damn you!” to those who enjoy steak and seek better and better steak to eat as a sort of passive hobby. To some, this brand of hedonistic consumerism is bad (maybe even evil), an explanation of which is best explained between sips of swirled wine. Something to the tune of “life is best enjoyed simply and those who are perpetually unsatisfied with the ‘adequate’ or the ‘mundane’ are a cancer ruining this society (and by extension, our planet)”. They take another sip and pat themselves on the back for, on principle, only eating kibble while then actively seeking better wines to drink. The issue with this grinds into a discussion about what is worth making better and what isn’t. So better toilets are bad because its wasteful, steak is bad because its evil and superior wine is okay because it's none of those things. These are value judgments probably based on what doesn’t salt the earth, poison our wells, or enslave baby cows to a meat factory. But things just aren’t that simple. Let’s just look at the anti-steak argument briefly, it has two elements, steak is evil, and a plant-based alternative is less-evil. So start with our mass murder cow factory, this an absurd extreme because it ignores the fact that the best steaks do not come from factory slaughter houses but from openly grazed low population cows massaged daily by Japanese workmen who later slaughter them via a ‘surprise the cow’ method as any suffering by the cow would supposedly taint the meat. On the alternative side, the pro vegetable solution is bifurcated between trying to convince people to not eat meat (which if successful result behavioral impacts like demanding more iron/protein heavy agriculture) or to do so with a government order. Either is participating in ecological manipulation with differing moral implications. We can get into the types of damage a particular type of new agricultural farmland will cause (the agricultural range for legume’s does not overlap with cattle ranch locations because cattle ranches are not placed on soil which useful for crop production and so, this likely results in ecosystem loss as farms are expanded) and compare that with our existing ranch’s damage/benefits, then repeat by changing the variables around. This is a lot more work than simply saying ‘meat is murder’ over and over on some internet image of a bloodied goat but, in my view, it is the reality. ‘Meat is murder’ wants to avoid this complicated puzzle altogether by arguing simply that eating meat as immoral as human murder, therefore we can do a lot less intellectual work and just skip to the end. Ban it, it’s a crime! But moral equivalence is a dangerous weapon to wield, tribal societies (should native american tribes be allowed to hunt/eat whale if it was done traditionally?), those struggling to survive (should the destitute be demonized for feeding their families?), and even wealthy omnivores (is meat eating honestly the moral equivalence of human murder?) should beware of their neighbors moral convictions as these sometimes find their way into law. Therefore, ignoring the hardcore ideologues who we can’t satisfy (all strictly unnecessary consumption is hedonistic and evil, all meat eating is murder, etc.), this entire conversation is really just a discussion of magnitudes, that is, the scale of ecological destruction by a given act (vineyards may cause less damage) or differing moral value judgments on the suffering of a cow vs the passive starvation of a bird or some other ignored animal. We can tack on other dimensions too (say, economic) but I think the horse has been sufficiently beaten at this point. The real world is complicated and it’s naïve to pretend otherwise. We can very easily criticize things and regurgitate lazy google facts as I’ve done above, but should beware of painting these little details in an objective good/evil framework. As outlined in the TV show “The Good Place”, analyzing issues holistically and attributing ideologically driven morality points to them results in a tedious exercise of always being able to argue that some mundane decision to buy an orange was actually evil because of evil labor practices or the negative impacts of pesticides on disadvantaged communities. This type of endless moralistic gotcha is a hollow way of contributing to the conversation (it presumes there is a ‘less evil’ alternative but doesn’t give it to you), although it should get points for making awkward moments of silence at a dinner party; a sort of educated persons click bait (the cynic’s game is an easy one to play). So where does this leave us? My intention is not to argue the case that meat eating is morally okay (it’s complicated) or to argue that the act of directly killing a cow is equivalent morally to starving an ant or a bird by removing habitat (I can be swayed either way at this point), but for me defending this posts desire to judge elaborate hotel toilets in an honest way can morph into that sort of discussion because for some, the underlying issue isn’t really about toilets (so I can't in good faith defend it from those people). However, I am confident that if we keep this in its box of only evaluating toilets, then making a restroom really nice causes very few moralistic repercussions. It is open to the charge of hedonism but, given recent marijuana legalization sweeping the country, this is apparently very low on societies hit list of evils so I think I’m in the clear. If you want a blog post about hotel toilets to address a nascent feeling of Western guilt or to continually excuse itself for potentially ‘being part of the problem’ then read Thich Nhat Hanh and discover enlightenment on your own time (at which point you likely shouldn’t be using the internet anyway). We will henceforth seek increasingly better and better toilets without apology. This may make you feel uncomfortable but the “become politically engaged” wet dream of every High School Civics teacher is being revealed for what it actually is, a mess. So strap in, it’s a brave new world folks.
3:
my wife informs me these were actually face wash cloths, I respectfully disagree and as Lt. Col. George Custer said in 1876, “some hills are worth dying on”
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